


Hard Day's Work, Parts 1 through 6

by IronGhoul



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronGhoul/pseuds/IronGhoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six one or two hundred word drabbles originally posted for firefly100 over on LiveJournal.  The crew of Serenity take a job. What could go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Day's Work, Parts 1 through 6

_Serenity_ shook violently. Again. “Captain, I--” Simon started, stumbling and grasping for a hand-hold on the bulkhead.  
  
“Now ain't the time for chat, doctor,” Mal growled. He was white-knuckling the yoke in the pilot's chair, making the best of being shot at.  
  
Simon inched his way into the cockpit, holding on for dear life. A brilliant explosion blossomed outside the viewport, rocking the ship once more. “But--!”  
  
The ship began a sickening roll, bringing to view, briefly, a spinning image of the pursuing Alliance gunship. The captain spun around, scowling. “ _Bizui_! I'm tryin' to keep us from shuffling off this mortal coil, and you're not helping that none.” Simon shrank back as Mal turned back to the situation at hand.  
  
Zoe watched coolly from the co-pilot's station. “Sir, I thought this job was legit.” She shot him a look before glancing out at the spinning starfield. “You wouldn't lie to me, would you. Sir.” It wasn't a question.  
  
“...No, no.” Mal said reassuringly, working to straighten Serenity's trajectory. “No. We get the contract, do the job, and then we get paid. All very legitimate.”  
  
“Right,” she nodded, unconvinced.  
  
“'Course, that's ignoring the legality. Otherwise, legit.”  
  
“Oh hell.”  
  
===  
  
  
Thought she'd heard a ghost, but Kaylee don't believe in ghosts, no how. Sure as an 80-aught-4'll snap right off your rig, there ain't no ghosts, not a one, in the whole 'verse.  
  
Which, besides the pair of guns pointed in her general direction, was the main reason why she didn't bother asking the man in the very fine hat, “Ain't you dead?” Bein' as he's here, kinda rules that out, she figured. Silently. As not to frighten the men whose trigger fingers may be jumpy.  
  
“S'anybody ever 'appy t' see me anymore?” mused Badger, grinning devilishly.  
  
===  
  
They shared a bond, you know. No, won't nothin' Zoe would have either of 'em hanged for. Wasn't like that. They were jumpsuit buddies. More than once they admired the handiwork of one crafty individual or another, spent long hours makin' _Serenity_ proper to fly again. And they were almost always left to tend the ship during a job – not that they minded. That's just what they did. The two had a lot of time together.  
  
Kaylee felt right small in the empty cockpit without Wash's energy filling the space.  
  
She never told anyone, not even River, that she kept those plastic dinosaurs Wash had, hidden in her bunk. In some small way, they embodied him perfectly. It was a reminder she needed to hold on to, and probably not something Zoe needed to see yet. So for now, those little dinosaurs would stay hidden.  
  
Kaylee was learning to fly; her way of really honoring Wash. 'Course, she couldn't tend to the engine and fly at the same time, and besides, Mal still handled the harder stuff.  
  
The captain strode in quietly. “Change of plans.” Kaylee turned to him. “Badger's got us twixt rock and a hard place. Taken over the job. How's _Serenity_?”  
  
She bit her lip and nodded. “Right as rain. He had just what we needed.”  
  
“That's what I'm worried about. Not sure what he's doin' off Persephone or how he found us here. Hell, didn't even say how he found out about that gorram gunship.” He grimaced. “Alls I know is that once this job's done, he better find a good place to hide.”  
  
Mal sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ready to go, _mei mei_?”  
  
“Good to go, Cap'n,” she said, smiling, albeit it a mite dim. “I'm a leaf on the wind.”  
  
===  
  
Badger left _Serenity_ , and Beylix, a right happy man. Wasn't nothing like swindling an honest man like Captain Malcolm Reynolds out of a cut of a job he won't even in on. “Sargent,” he reminded himself, laughing. His crew, all crammed on the tiny lighter back to Persephone, eyed him at that, but he shot them a look and continued down to the bunks.  
  
_Worth flyin' out, just t' take 'im down a peg_ , he figured. _Gives a grand amount o' pleasure, sendin' a man'a 'is high moralistic fibers spinnin' about. I'm a grounded man, truth told, don't care much to work wi' those ain't cottoned to life bein' a mite more grittier 'an they'd like. You'd think a man of th' 57th'd figure that out. Mal's weakness bein' that o' keepin' 'is word, alls I gotta do is sit an' wait fer tha' righteous brigand t' show._  
  
Badger hoped that Reynolds didn't run across a burnin' orphanage or a town fulla sick grandmothers an', seein' th' need t' 'elp out, muck up th' comin' back part. _Jus' like 'im, dyin' or summat t' save me th' satisfaction._  
  
Now to wait for Mal to show up and give him hell.  
  
===  
  
Was it the blood rushing to her head or the viewport? She counted the stars either way: ten to the twelfth. _Plus one_ , she giggled. No matter how many, she was glad there were some at all. Beylix felt too stuffy with all its cloud cover – closed off, claustrophobic. Her eyes slid lazily to the floor. There was a boot that certainly wasn't there before. Mal was a misnomer, she thought; he radiated warmth.  
  
“I reckon you know the table's for eatin' on, not loungin', girl.” The captain announced.  
  
“You're upside down,” River responded. Hair grazing the floor, she studied his boots. _How was he staying upside down like that?_  
  
“Now I'm pretty sure you're the one that's upside down, little miss.” He seemed hesitant, though. River grinned as she felt the fleeting thought that she might be right run through his head. He shook it off. “Just don't break anything. _Dong ma?_ ” Mal turned and started off toward his bunk.  
  
“Be careful!” she called after him, concerned. “Don't fall!”  
  
He paused. “Sometimes I think it'd be right shiny if you clued me in to how your brains worked. Rest of the time I figure I'm better off not knowin'.”  
  
===  
  
On Earth-that-was, Inara was told, was a forest older than time – no, a single tree, with thousands of stems. It covered the mountainside, this one tree. The Trembling Giant. It was there long before people and she wondered what it could tell her, had it the chance. Age brings wisdom. Shame nothing here was near that old. Everything is man-made now, even the trees.  
  
No mysteries in the black.  
  
She sat, admitedly uncomfortable, in the hammock in the engine room, watching Kaylee coax another week or two of functioning out of Serenity. It was an enigma to her, but Kaylee knew it inside and out. “We'll be at Dyton Colony in a few days,” Inara said at length, over the thrum of Serenity's heart. “I hear he's going to let you land her this time.”  
  
Kaylee came up for air, wiping greasy hands on a rag. “Yep. Should be cake,” she said. “Cap says ya treat her right, she does just what you ask.” Kaylee patted a support strut and cooed, “Ain't that right, girl?”as she walked by, leaving a bemused Inara alone in the compartment.  
  
Maybe she still had some mysteries to stop to ponder.


End file.
